Treading the Gray Area

Immigration Forum Looks to Educate -- if Not Unite -- Community

Legal vs. illegal.

It seems simple enough, but about 100 Loudoun County residents spent two hours Thursday night listening to a panel of speakers wade through the gray areas surrounding the immigration debate. And when it was over, there were still questions.

"It's about educating the community -- the whole community," said Edwin Andrade, a board member of La Voz of Loudoun, which sponsored the panel discussion at Ida Lee Park Recreation Center in Leesburg. "Immigration is a complex issue, and there are no simple solutions."

La Voz, a nonprofit group that provides information and referral services to immigrants, organized the session in response to a Loudoun County Board of Supervisors resolution last month that seeks to cut off county services to illegal immigrants, hasten their deportation and penalize employers who hire undocumented workers. The group's leaders, while expressing concern about the board's action, had said before the meeting that it would be strictly informational and that participants would not advance any political viewpoint.

Panel members included Loudoun Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson; Rob Rutland-Brown, executive director of Just Neighbors, an organization that provides legal services to low-income immigrants; Flavia Jimenez of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Latino civil rights organization; and Laura Valle, executive director of La Voz.

The audience included both immigrants and members of Help Save Loudoun, a group that supports the supervisors' initiative. Several public officials, including county supervisors James Burton (I-Blue Ridge) and Sarah R. "Sally" Kurtz (D-Catoctin), also attended.

Maria Clemens, an Ashburn resident, said afterward that she came in the hope that the meeting might help bridge divergent views on the proposed county crackdown.

"I have seen a community being divided instead of being brought together," she said. "We had this opportunity to be a model, and it is being lost."

The panel answered anonymous questions submitted on index cards by the audience members. There were questions about specific immigration laws as well as general queries, such as how to strengthen ties between immigrants and the rest of the community. By the end of the night, many index cards remained unread.

One of the main topics was how local police are dealing with illegal immigrants in the community. Simpson said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to deport "the worst of the worst in the community," meaning people who have committed crimes.

"That's where their focus is; that is where our focus is," Simpson said.

He said he hopes to work with ICE to deport illegal immigrants who are arrested on charges such as driving while intoxicated or who rack up misdemeanor convictions.